The Moral Limits of Strategic Attack

MICHAEL A. CARLINO

American military operations in the post-Cold War
era have been punctuated by a twofold desire for casualty avoidance. The
first manifestation is a long-standing feature associated with the conduct
of war: the preservation of friendly forces. The success of Operation Desert
Storm proved that heavy casualties on one's own forces are not necessary
for military victory, and, not surprisingly, that conflict indirectly promoted
force protection as paramount in subsequent operations. The other manifestation
of casualty avoidance is the reduction of noncombatant losses. Of course,
the term encompasses noncombatants residing in or belonging to the enemy
state as well as those in one's own country. Although the idea of noncombatant
immunity has a lengthy history traceable to the earliest warrior codes,
the reduction of noncombatant casualties, particularly those of the enemy,
has consistently been overshadowed by claims of military necessity. Arguably,
the rise of the modern media, virtually omnipresent, might be credited
with helping to renew interest in the protection of noncombatants, since
no aspect of conflict now escapes international scrutiny.

Complicating matters is the military's current focus on effects-based
targeting and operations, perhaps epitomized in the Air Force's doctrine
regarding strategic attack. Rather than focusing on engaging enemy forces
directly, current doctrine holds that strategic attack is used to destroy
the enemy's centers of gravity, "those characteristics, capabilities, or
localities from which a military force derives its freedom of action, physical
strength, or will to fight."[1] The idea is usually attributed to the initial
architect of the Gulf War's air campaign, Colonel John Warden, who proposed
the existence of five rings or centers of gravity, the most important being
leadership, followed by organic essentials, infrastructure, population,
and finally the actual fighting mechanism, which is portrayed as the least
important.[2] This center-of-gravity concept is certainly reminiscent of
Sun Tzu's dictum purporting that the acme of skill is to subdue the enemy
without fighting, since capturing forces is preferable to engaging in battle.
Hence, attacking the enemy's strategy, not troops, is ultimately what ensures
success.[3] However, the nature of the modern battlefield inherently blurs
the distinction between combatants and noncombatants; soldiers and civilians
are now inextricably woven together in an amorphous battle space, and so
the age of segregated battlefields has all but vanished.

The obvious problem is which notion--force protection or noncombatant
immunity--ought to have priority and to what extent. Intuition, as well
as the current modus operandi of the military, might suggest that it is
more important for the military leader to preserve the lives of his soldiers
even at the cost of greatly increasing the risk to noncombatants, especially
when the noncombatant lives in question are not US citizens or allies but
rather belong to the enemy state. After all, the prevailing view is that
American lives are somehow more important. That view, however, is misguided.
A military commander is morally obligated to do as much as he can to preserve
the lives of all noncombatants, even if significantly increasing the risk
to his own soldiers. This does not necessitate fighting a war devoid of
noncombatant casualties--that may well be virtually impossible--nor does
it mean that winning is unachievable. Wars can still be fought and won;
however, the moral import of noncombatant immunity demands a shift in the
current conception of force protection.

Force Protection

That commanders have a legal duty to protect and ensure the health and
welfare of their subordinates during peacetime as well as wartime is incontrovertible.
Whether that duty is a moral one is a slightly more open question. Of interest
here is not an evaluation of the many plausible arguments that might support
such a claim, but the stringency of the moral requirement given that it
does exist. This stringency rests upon the resolution of an apparent tension
of what has priority for the commander: his mission or his people. Vacuous
aphorisms, such as "mission first, people always," proffered throughout
the military, offer no solid counsel. Instead, the answer lies in the analysis
of soldiers and their rights.

Soldiers serve in the military fully knowing their lives can be subject
to greater risk than their fellow citizens, which might seem obvious in
a time of war. Even in peacetime, training with any semblance of realism
can, and unfortunately sometimes does, result in harm for those involved.
But with the onset of hostilities, soldiers become combatants and are thus
imbued with a fundamentally different moral status than noncombatants.
The reason for the difference involves an exchange of rights between combatants--namely
the rights to kill and to be killed.

Soldiers on both sides of a war are willing to fight and die for the
defense of what they consider essential values worthy of their lives. An
immediate objection might be raised, contending that soldiers actually
are motivated into action by a whole host of reasons such as pride, vanity,
hate, or fellow feeling, but not necessarily the defense of national values.
While indeed true, these interests might be considered immediate or first-order.
Most combatants, perhaps mercenaries aside, also have a deeper, second-order
interest at stake, which corresponds to the defense of values. For US soldiers,
these values include those of the liberal democratic tradition, such as
life and liberty. When states decide to enter into hostilities in defense
of their respective values, service members operate on a good-faith principle
regarding their country's intentions, namely that the intent is the defense
of their values. In other words, the moral responsibility of engaging in
war is a jus ad bellum issue resting squarely with the political
authorities of the state--be they authoritarian or democratic in nature--and
not with the soldiers prosecuting it. This is not to advocate a carte blanche
appeal to invincible ignorance, but instead to assume that in most cases
and especially early on, the state's actual reasons for war might be inaccessible
to the soldier.[4] Hence, soldiers as a general class can be considered
in the absence of jus ad bellum concerns.

So though combatants do not choose the wars involving their states,
they do fight against what constitutes a legitimate threat to the preservation
of their values--the enemy combatants--while fully knowing that the enemy's
actions and beliefs essentially mirror their own. Because they have this
shared status, combatants also share the moral responsibility for posing
an imminent threat to one another. Assuming that combatants have no other
recourse but fighting to protect these values, combatants are not only
allowed, but in fact are morally obligated, to use force.[5] Thus, combatants
on both sides of a war possess moral equivalency because they share the
same moral obligation, the defense of their nation's values.

It follows that combatants are not considered criminals for fighting
in a war even if they are fighting for the "wrong side," since they are
not responsible for the jus ad bellum decision.[6] Soldiers need
concern themselves primarily with adherence to the tenets of jus in
bello, so that in fighting the good fight, they cannot be considered
murderers or morally reprehensible for killing in combat. For instance,
assume that Iraq was unjust by instigating the Gulf War. While Saddam Hussein
might be considered morally responsible and blameworthy for the conflict
as the state's political leader, Iraqi soldiers, including those who killed
US and coalition soldiers, are not automatically guilty of a crime or moral
transgression. To consider soldiers fighting for the "wrong side" as murderers
would be grossly counterintuitive and ultimately untenable.[7]

It might seem that the discussion of a soldier gaining "combatant rights"
(like the right to kill other combatants) speaks past the commander's moral
obligation to protect his force. However, it has immediate relevance because
obtaining combatant rights necessitates the commensurate reduction in the
stringency of the combatant's right to life. In other words, the soldier
no longer has a stringent claim that he not be killed. After all, combatants
have the right to kill their foe, but their foes concurrently have the
right to kill them. Thus, these two rights are mutually dependent.

This loss of stringency regarding the combatant's right to life also
entails that a combatant is not safeguarded by an absolute prohibition
against a commander's decision to jeopardize his life for mission accomplishment.
It certainly might be the case that training missions or missions in conflicts
concerning non-vital national interests are not worth sacrificing soldiers'
lives. However, when the vital interests of a nation are jeopardized and
a war is worth engaging in, the mission of preserving these national interests
and associated values must logically trump any claim combatants might have
regarding their personal safety. Soldiers, especially in the case of a
volunteer military, realize this and realize that the sacrifice of their
lives might be required--else they would not become soldiers.

This discussion assumes that commanders place their soldiers in peril
with good intent and that they act out of concern for accomplishment of
a mission related to winning the war and ultimately protecting the values
at stake. Commanders who wantonly cause the death of their own soldiers
with no aim toward mission success are beyond consideration here. Commanders
ordinarily ought to do as much as morality permits to reduce risk and prevent
their soldiers from dying unnecessarily. However, sometimes soldiers will
die. Commanders whose decisions result in the loss of their subordinates'
lives, even excessive loss, are not by rule considered immoral but perhaps
only ineffective or unfortunate. Furthermore, combatants ordered to perform
missions with the gravest danger are not at liberty to refuse based on
concerns of self-preservation. Danger is not a mitigating or exempting
circumstance. Such actions are punishable offenses as evidenced by Article
99, "Misbehavior Before the Enemy," in the Manual for Courts-Martial,
United States.[8] Thus, the commander's duty to minimize the harm that
comes to his soldiers in combat is of tremendous pragmatic import, but
it is not a stringent moral obligation. Ultimately, mission must come first,
and the safety of each individual soldier comes second.

Noncombatant Immunity

The argument for noncombatant immunity is grounded upon the idea that
people possess certain basic rights stemming from their autonomy and moral
agency. Exactly what rights belong to this set is debatable, but certainly
life and liberty are among them if they exist at all. The discussion in
this article will be limited to the former, which, it might be noted, is
not a single claim in itself but is rather a cluster-right containing rights,
privileges, certain immunities, and claims to noninterference.[9] As such,
the right to life is inalienable only in the sense that "others lack
the power to make one cease to have it, and thus . . . one [has] immunity
against others in respect of it."[10]

It follows then that all moral agents possess the inalienable right
to life, regardless of whether they are citizens of the United States or
an enemy state. This does not mean that a person cannot forfeit the right.[11]
As discussed above, voluntary combatants give up at least a part of their
right to life--the right not to be killed by other combatants--in order
to gain the right to kill. In contrast, noncombatants do not participate
in any such exchange, and their right to life remains inalienable and stringent.
Given this difference, the noncombatant is not subject to direct attack,
being targeted or intentionally harmed by combatants.

Intuition seems to readily support this argument in the consideration
of noncombatants considered friendly.[12] US soldiers cannot reasonably
believe that they would have the liberty to kill US civilians during a
mission, excusing such action as militarily "necessary." After all, their
mission is to protect these people, even when only indirectly. Military
personnel realize that this is why they are fighting in the first place,
as evidenced by having "selfless service" as one of their core professional
values.[13]

Unfortunately, intuition is not as trustworthy with regard to noncombatants
perfunctorily considered the enemy. Though these people are not a direct
threat to the combatant, their relationship with enemy combatants is seemingly
pernicious. However, it is difficult to see how the contingent matter of
nationality or geographic location has moral import, and it is untenable
to hold that US citizens enjoy moral superiority over foreigners simply
because they are American. Any such presumption of moral superiority is
groundless. Noncombatants of all nationalities, friendly or enemy, enjoy
the same inalienable right to life, which carries the same stringency regarding
noninterference.

Hence, a combatant is obligated to respect the rights of all noncombatants.
Combatants are morally obligated to respect the stringency of noncombatants'
right to life and must never intend to harm them or use them solely as
a means to an end.[14] This obligation is particularly poignant for US
soldiers. The values that US soldiers fight for are not simply constrained
or applicable to their own citizens but are liberal democratic ideals that
apply to all people. The Constitution rests on this very premise. So, any
war involving the United States ultimately centers on the advancement of
such ideals; any fight for the United States against a state that is not
"well-ordered" is a fight for basic rights--including the right to life--for
not only its own citizens but those of the enemy state as well.[15] This
is why humanitarian interests are overtly included in the National Security
Strategy.[16] It follows that it is contradictory to then cause harm
to the very people whose right to life the military is obligated to protect.

Some might object to this assertion on the grounds that enemy noncombatants
are, after all, the enemy. But such a notion fails to delineate the moral
differences between those who prosecute a war and those who only witness
it. This is not to say they bear no responsibility for the war, especially
if they have the freedom to influence such decisions, as in the case of
a democracy. Even so, this hardly constitutes grounds for the cessation
of their noncombatant immunity. They are not the threat and cannot be considered
legitimate targets.

One should acknowledge that the broad category of noncombatants can
and ought to be subdivided, since the picture is not entirely black and
white. This discussion so far regarding noncombatants has addressed innocent
noncombatants, those with no direct involvement with fighting the war or
materially supporting the war effort. There are also "non-innocent noncombatants,"
on the other hand: people who, though not engaged in making war, directly
support the war effort, the obvious example being workers at munitions
or armament factories. In virtue of their activity, non-innocent noncombatants
have a less stringent claim not to be killed, though they still cannot
be directly targeted. In other words, bombing the munitions factory with
the minimal number of workers present is much less controversial than inflicting
the same number of casualties on innocents who are not engaged in a war-supporting
activity. The non-innocent noncombatants killed increased their own risk
by engaging in an enterprise solely designed for the purpose of war.[17]
Even so, such fine distinctions are not critical to the thesis of this
article. In any modern conflict there will be innocent noncombatants, and
it is on them that this article focuses.[18]

In sum, noncombatants enjoy a more stringent right to life than combatants
since they themselves have not opted to reduce or degrade it in any way,
and no one else has that power. Returning to the initial issue of whether
a commander must give priority to force protection or to the safety of
noncombatants, the answer should be obvious. The stringency of the latter
trumps the former, morally obligating the commander. Ultimately, force
protection at the expense of noncombatant safety is immoral and contradictory
to the achievement of any legitimate end.

The Doctrine of Double Effect, and Centers of Gravity

The above conclusion hardly resolves the issue. Knowing that noncombatant
immunity is more important than force protection does not provide a normative
framework for the commander attempting to win while waging a moral war.
The unfortunate fact is that in war innocent noncombatants will die, and
commanders cannot reasonably prevent all such deaths while still fulfilling
their moral obligation to protect national values. For instance, the Normandy
invasion would not have been called off, nor should it have been, if a
final reconnaissance report minutes before the operation identified a bold
Frenchman who, to spite the Germans, decided to go fishing on the beach.

Such casualties or similar collateral damage are usually legitimized
by an appeal to the "Doctrine of Double Effect," which, if satisfied, purports
to provide the moral justification of an action that has simultaneous good
and bad consequences. There are various formulations of this doctrine,
but arguably the strongest and most plausible is by Michael Walzer. He
proposes a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect which consists of four
necessary conditions:

(1) Legitimacy: the act is good in itself--i.e., it is a legitimate
act of war.

(2) Effect: the direct effect is morally acceptable.

(3) Intent: the intention of the actor is good, that is, he aims narrowly
at the acceptable effect; the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is
it a means to his ends, and, aware of the evil involved, he seeks to minimize
it, accepting costs to himself.

(4) Proportionality: the good effect is sufficiently good to compensate
for allowing the evil effect.[19]

In the case of our unfortunate Frenchman at Normandy, all tenets are easily
satisfied: the attack was a legitimate act of war; it had an acceptable
direct effect in that it killed or removed the German combatants from the
area; the intent of the Allies was good in that the death of the Frenchman
was not used to facilitate mission success; and, finally, the good coming
from the invasion far outweighed the evil coming from the Frenchman's death.
Hence, the action, even if it killed the French innocent noncombatant,
would be justified.

Since the efficacy of the Doctrine of Double Effect (hereinafter referred
to as just "Double Effect") rests upon the third and fourth tenets, which
carry the burden of the argument, let us look at some problems with them
before relating the doctrine to the current strategy involving the strategic
attack of centers of gravity.[20] Though Double Effect offers progress
over less restrictive measures, the third and fourth tenets are problematically
vague. The intentions of a commander are not readily known. Furthermore,
the requirement to minimize evil and accept costs suffers from the same
problem as proportionality, namely subjectivity in the assignment of relative
values to military advantage, risk, and noncombatant injury.[21] The issue
is much like the "sorites paradox" in logic: "large amounts," in this case
of injuries to noncombatants, are easily recognized, but no line defining
what constitutes a "large amount" seems identifiable.

In difficult cases, like those commonly arising from effects-based targeting
against centers of gravity, the benefit of the doubt concerning the vagueness
rests with the opinion of the reasonable military commander. Consider the
case of degrading an enemy command, control, and communications network.
In Kosovo, degrading this center of gravity included the strategic bombing
and destruction of the "RTS," the state-run broadcasting corporation in
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which resulted in the deaths of 10
to 17 civilians (the Serbs claimed 16).[22] Was this justified by Double
Effect? Assuming the first two tenets to be satisfied, one must ask whether
this met the requirements of intent and proportionality.

With regard to intent, NATO expressed two reasons for the attack. First,
the station was alleged to have a dual use, because it supported radio
relay for the Yugoslavian military and special police forces. Second, NATO
declared that it needed "to strike at the very central nerve system of
Milosovic's regime" and that strikes against targets such as the RTS were
"a part of the campaign to dismantle the propaganda machinery which [was]
a vital part of President Milosovic's control mechanism."[23] Neither reason
evidences an overtly evil intent (though the Serbs argued that the act
was simply a suppression of free speech and the truth), nor do they suggest
that the civilians were used as a means.[24] However, there is some room
for debate as to whether risk was minimized because of the possible inadequacy
of warnings about the attack. Furthermore, proportionality is also suspect
since the broadcasting at the facility "allegedly recommenced within hours
of the strike," obviating any potential gain.[25] NATO responded to these
criticisms by arguing that appropriate warnings were given before the attack,
and that, regarding proportionality, a command, control, and communications
system is a complex web that cannot be disabled by a single strike, and
proportionality therefore has to be measured in terms of cumulative effects
on the system rather than in terms of each discrete event.[26]

Such an interpretation of Double Effect by a reasonable commander apparently
justifies this attack and others like it. This supposed justification is
strengthened by a similar decision by the UN's committee charged with reviewing
the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. But
consider the following hypothetical scenario: What if the same target had
been attacked with the same results, but by a ground combat unit rather
than a missile strike? In such a case, Double Effect seems far less permissive
in justifying the deaths of ten or more civilians. After all, the commander
would have had many options to reduce the risk to the civilians, such as
clearing the building of its occupants before destroying the facility.
If he had not done so, he would have failed to satisfy the final demand
of the third tenet, and ended up with an unacceptable ratio of civilian
deaths to gain, failing the fourth tenet as well.

The fact that these moral judgments differ is rather problematic given
that both scenarios have identical missions and identical results. It cannot
be the case that the use of aerospace power in a strategic attack capacity
somehow requires less moral stringency or less moral forethought than the
use of force by troops on the ground. Any such notion is wholly untenable.
In actuality, the apparent disparity results not from a difference in kind
between air power and other force, but from the aforementioned vagueness
of Double Effect, which is then exploited by the way we employ the current
doctrine mandating effects-based strategic attack of centers of gravity.

From its inception, strategic attack has been a way to degrade the enemy
while reducing risk to the overall force. Aerospace power is the primary
means for strategic attack, and it has proved effective and efficient.
This is not to say that pilots conducting combat missions do not incur
significant risk. They do, and they routinely act with valor. However,
the aerospace force currently enjoys tremendous advantages because of the
absolutely dominating technological sophistication involved. Ground forces,
on the other hand, lack such a distinct advantage and hence face greater
risks--US actions in Somalia speak to this point. For US forces, fighting
the ground portion of a campaign is simply more dangerous and riskier for
many more soldiers across the force. It would be ludicrous to believe that
a ground invasion of Kosovo would have been casualty-free if the Serbs
had offered any resistance whatsoever. While air-centric strategic bombing
of centers of gravity is effective in breaking the enemy's will, it also
is the safest way to wage a war, at least with regard to friendly forces.

Though effective and efficient, the use of such strategic attack inevitably
involves a moral cost--exposing noncombatants to unnecessary risk and harm.
Such an assertion raises an immediate objection, namely that during strategic
attack noncombatants are exposed to less overall risk and harm since the
use of ground forces would ultimately lead to more casualties, which prevents
the latter from being the most moral course. The objection is a consequentialist
approach based in the contention that the rightness of an action is dependent
upon its ability to maximally obtain the good or end.[27] In the case of
war, the good seems to be preserving lives, which then relegates the use
of ground forces to a less desirable position as a moral option--assuming
it does indeed result in more casualties. Such consequentialist thinking
was clearly evident in NATO's response regarding the issue of proportionality
in the RTS bombing.[28]

The consequentialist argument, though, is plagued by a significant problem--it
relies on moral luck. In other words, a moral agent's action is justified
only in the cases where the outcome does in fact obtain. However, an agent's
action will always lack sufficiency to actually bring about the desired
end. Moral justification for the consequentialist is always contingent
upon factors well beyond the actual span of the agent's control. Admittedly,
this oversimplifies consequentialism, which in reality has a rather robust
philosophic tradition. However, a thorough exploration is not required
here, since none of its variants provides the desired sufficiency regarding
action and outcome.

Consider the following example. George sees a man desperately trying
to fix a flat tire on his van along the roadside. Feeling helpful, George
lends him assistance. The man is soon on his way because of George's aid,
and he thanks George, noting that he will now be able to make it to a very
important engagement that evening. George believes that he has done a good
deed, one worthy of moral praise. Arguably, he has. The next morning, however,
George reads in the paper that a man in a van, in fact the man he helped,
set off a car bomb the previous night, killing 40 people at a function
attended by the mayor and other city officials. Is George's action, previously
a morally praiseworthy one, now suddenly bad because of how things turned
out? No, the goodness of George's act does not diminish despite how things
turned out. The praiseworthiness of an action ought not be contingent upon
factors beyond an agent's control but instead depends solely upon the agent
himself.

Returning to the issue at hand, the fact that a ground option might
incur more overall casualties than the use of aerospace power says nothing
definitive about its rightness or wrongness. Intent has much more relevance
to the rightness of an act than how things actually turn out; morality
is concerned with how one ought to act rather than actualities such as
what one does or might do given impunity from consequences.[29] Thus, what
has to be examined in the consideration of the use of strategic bombing
to affect centers of gravity as opposed to a ground force option is not
simply proportionality but also intent, which is embodied in the third
tenet of Double Effect.

Current practice acknowledges that attacking targets affecting centers
of gravity requires prior assessments of the possible collateral damage,
so as to establish proportionality and hence justification. However, if
the resultant collateral damage is to also satisfy the third tenet of Double
Effect, then it must be unintended. The exercise has become a rather litigious
one as high-ranking commanders find themselves surrounded not only by strategists,
tacticians, and intelligence officers, but by legal counsel as well. This
occurred with the RTS station attack. In that instance, NATO contended
that it was never the intent to kill the workers or use them as a way of
achieving the destruction of the station; consequently, the casualties
ought to be considered unintended. Assuming the number was not unacceptably
high, the act is then deemed proportional, which completes its justification.

Yet such a rationale is actually an equivocation of sorts regarding
the notion of unintendedcasualties.Unintended implies accidental,
not simply unfortunate. If a casualty is foreseen as a result of an action,
it is difficult to consider that casualty unintended. Good intent is much
more than a person uttering a reassuring explanation after the fact--that
is why integrity is a virtue. Consider the deaths at Hiroshima. It is difficult
to say that those deaths were accidental.[30] They were foreseen, at least
a large number of them, even though the people involved were not the actual
objective but an unfortunate side-effect. Such deaths are often still categorized
as unintended by the reasonable commander. However, there is a significant
difference, for example, between planning to destroy a vacant bridge but
having a car with innocent noncombatants unexpectedly cross it during the
attack, and planning to destroy the same bridge with the knowledge that
the same car is certain to be on it. Therein lies a problem: foreseen deaths
are not in fact unintended, but are knowingly caused and accepted to obtain
some end.

An objection might be raised contending that the workers in the RTS
were actually non-innocent noncombatants if they were in fact engaged in
direct military support. Assuming this to be the case, one would concede
that the implications of equivocation in this case are diminished since
the deaths of non-innocents can be of the foreseeable variety. After all,
they have less stringency in their claim not to be attacked because of
their chosen enterprise. Yet the overall criticism remains: air-centric
strategic attack of centers of gravity often has foreseeable effects upon
innocent noncombatants. For example, suppose the power grid of a city is
targeted. The object of the attack, military-related activities powered
by the plant, would be crippled, but so would everything else drawing power
from the source, including such things as hospitals, refrigeration, water
purification processes, and a whole host of other life-sustaining aspects
of society. The effects of such an attack are foreseen and cannot then
be imagined to be accidental when they do occur.

When such actions have foreseeable negative effects to innocents, the
moral burden falls upon the combatant to ensure that he minimizes them
at the cost of increasing the risk to himself and his forces. This is in
essence what the third tenet of Double Effect requires. However, the "minimization"
usually manifests itself in the requirement to use precision-guided munitions
with smaller effects as opposed to using more indiscriminate and destructive
conventional ones. Such a move is hardly sufficient. If the objective is
really valuable to the military campaign and the war is really worth winning,
then the achievement of the objective must be worth the loss of soldiers'
lives. This does not mean that soldiers have to or even ought to die. What
it does mean is that combatants must be the ones bearing the risk of dying
rather than innocent noncombatants--even enemy noncombatants. This cannot
be accomplished by simply using precision munitions. Though they may reduce
damage in contrast to conventional weapons, they serve only to reduce risk
within the discrete categories of noncombatant and combatant; they do nothing
to affect the transfer of risk from noncombatant to combatant as morality
demands. Such a requirement makes fighting the war much more difficult
than the efficient option provided by aerospace power. The lives of combatants,
perhaps many, will be lost, yet to give force protection priority is exactly
what should not be done.

A final analogy might help to clarify and emphasize the above point.
Consider terrorism. Its instances, even beyond al-Qaida, are many--the
Algerian resistance to French occupation, the Irish Republican Army's fight
against the British, and the various groups fighting for Palestinian autonomy--and
the notoriety of these groups speaks to the effectiveness of their means.
However, terrorism is condemned as immoral because of its indiscriminate
nature, which causes foreseeable, innocent noncombatant deaths. In other
words, terrorism harms innocents as a direct means to effect its end. Even
if the terrorists' cause is considered in some instances to be worthy and
good, terrorism, as a means, remains unpalatable, because the terrorist
attempts to achieve expediency by placing his goal ahead of his moral responsibility
to innocents.

The terrorist's response would be that his seemingly evil methods, though
drastic, are in fact justified, because they are the only ones available
in the given situation. Such a claim is unacceptable. Even a good cause
does not justify the use of any possible method to achieve it. A murderer
is no less a murderer just because he kills what he believes to be evil
people in his attempt to improve society. And even if the terrorist is
successful, there ought not be any gain in his moral legitimacy. (Anomalies
do occur, like Yasser Arafat, who rose from terrorist to Nobel Peace Prize
recipient.) The fact is that other means are always available. These alternatives
will most likely expose the terrorist to a much greater risk and possibly
jeopardize his ability to obtain his end, but they are available; terrorism
is not the only recourse, as the terrorist claims. The reality is that
the terrorist is unwilling to assume risk and instead transfers it to innocents.
Certainly it is easier for the terrorist to destroy a school bus full of
children than to attack a military installation.

Interestingly, however, the moral condemnation that applies to the terrorist
differs only in degree, not kind, from the position advanced in this article
regarding the current practice involving foreseeable deaths. The analogy
is loose, as the terrorist's position is complicated by other factors such
as his exploitation of the combatant/noncombatant distinction and failing
to meet the jus ad bellum requirements for engaging in hostilities
in the first place. However, breaking the will of an enemy through strategic
attack has no more moral legitimacy than terrorism if it capitalizes on
the innocent.

Implications

Fighting justly does not necessitate the end of aerospace power or the
use of air-centric strategic attack--though staunch advocates of Douhet
and LeMay might disagree. Aerospace power in itself is not immoral and
is in fact essential for success in wars and conflicts of the future, which
will not be won without the joint employment and application of forces.
If the United States is to fight these future conflicts justly, however,
morality requires a shift in our current conception and practices regarding
force protection.

Politicians and military leaders alike need to abandon the zero-casualty
mentality and de-emphasize force protection at the cost of increased risk
to noncombatants. Friendly casualty estimates are important planning factors,
but they ought never to drive policy and strategy; national interests should.
The current strategy of shaping the international environment and responding
to threats involves myriad national interests that must be closely scrutinized
to determine which among them are really worth the lives of American soldiers.
When a conflict arises over a particular interest that lacks such import,
cruise missile strikes, though convenient, are not morally defensible if
they will harm the innocent. Such policy ought to give way to nonmilitary
instruments of power, even if they are less efficient. Of course, the decision
to refrain from military force with respect to a particular issue does
not need to be advertised, so as not to degrade US diplomatic leverage.

Those interests worth the aforementioned costs obligate leaders and
policymakers to act decisively and at the same time to inform the American
people as to the importance of achieving those goals. In this age of asymmetric
warfare, enemies will prey upon the ability to break the national will
by exploiting American sentiments relating to casualty aversion regarding
friendly forces--much like the effect in Somalia after US casualties were
taken. Predicating support for military operations on the pretense of casualty-free
operations serves only to encourage such a strategy. However, the recognition
of a proper military ethic, which demands selflessness and integrity as
outlined above, surmounts that threat. Professional soldiers are not afraid
to fight when called upon, even when the danger is of the gravest sort.
Military setbacks are ruinous to campaign strategy only when the interests
are not worth fighting and dying for in the first place. When the interests
are sufficiently important, the loss of some soldiers ought to only strengthen
US resolve, at home as well as in the theater of operations, rather than
weaken it. The general population is not so casualty-averse so as to denounce
any operation involving US losses--witness the overwhelming support of
the Gulf War despite substantial casualty predictions.

Upon recognizing the disparity of the moral status of innocent noncombatants
in contrast to combatants, leaders are also obligated to consider and employ
the full array of forces capable of accomplishing a given mission. In doing
so, their determination of what forces to use should not rest upon expediency
and efficiency but upon balancing those needs with the moral requirement
to reduce the risk to innocents. Unfortunately, aerospace power in isolation
does not provide the capability to adequately satisfy the claims of morality
with regard to reducing risk to innocents, at least not yet. When technology
advances to the point that munitions have the same powers of discrimination
as a soldier on the ground, aerospace power may well be sufficient. Until
that time, policymakers and strategists cannot continue to believe in light
of just war theory that aerospace power alone is an appropriate option;
rather, jointly packaged forces from all services must be employed even
when it entails more risk and associated costs.

Leaders also need to realize that not every center of gravity, critical
capability, or critical requirement translates into a strategic target,
even if its destruction facilitates the war effort. For those that do,
the considerations of targeting and weaponry should extend beyond the realm
of aerospace platforms. The use of ground forces and their associated effects
must be similarly weighed when considering strategic targets. In essence,
the doctrine of strategic attack must become more robust and inclusive
of other services, or it will always be in jeopardy of moral inadequacy.
Though riskier in the force protection sense than using precision-guided
munitions, the use of special operations or air assault forces might present
significantly less risk to innocents in certain strategic attack situations
with foreseen collateral damage, and hence be the morally preferable choice.
In other words, leaders must realize that legal sufficiency does not equate
to moral goodness.

It is not clear that philosophers can develop more restrictive or definitive
rules and principles than Walzer's Doctrine of Double Effect regarding
conduct in war. Too often, one looks for a prescriptive methodology regarding
morality that promises to delineate day from night in the moral twilight.
Such efforts are self-defeating; morality is not an exact science. What
is required is not more prescriptions, but leaders imbued with the virtues
established in the professional military ethic. Properly developed notions
of the core values, particularly selfless service and integrity, are what
will clarify the gray areas and guide the combatant's conduct.[31] Integrity
demands not the obtaining of an end, but the rightness of the means. Integrity
thus precludes foreseeable deaths as accidental and unintended, because
it demands right action regardless of the consequences involved. Integrity
also entails selflessness in soldiers, since fulfilling their moral obligations
inherently shifts risk onto themselves. Such must be the nature of the
true military professional. If we cannot prosecute a war justly, then the
war should not be fought. To do otherwise is a compromise of integrity
and directly contradicts the very reasons for fighting.

4. See Paul Christopher, The Ethics of War and Peace (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994). Christopher embraces invincible ignorance
and argues that from it, soldiers always have a professional obligation
to fight in war. I believe this is mistaken. Soldiers may have deep moral
objections to a war they consider unjust. Morality ought not to force them
to act against such convictions, since their professional obligations were
most likely undertaken only with the assumption that the goals of the profession
were not contradictory with personal beliefs.

5. Since there is no higher authority, the domestic analogy between
citizen and state no longer applies. Thus, force is the recourse necessitated.

6. The line does get blurred at the highest echelons where military
leaders do influence national policy. For the purposes of this article,
I ignore such cases.

7. This counterintuitive position was raised by prosecutors at the Nuremberg
trials but subsequently rejected. Thus, ordinary German soldiers were not
held responsible for jus ad bellum transgressions committed by Nazi
leaders.

8. US Department of Defense, Manual for Courts-Martial, United States
(Washington: Department of Defense, 1994).

11. For an excellent defense of this claim, see Thompson, The Realm
of Rights.

12. By friendly noncombatants, I simply mean those citizens belonging
to the combatant's state (or ally). This is in contrast to enemy noncombatants,
who are the citizens belonging to the enemy state. The terms do not imply
friendly or hostile intentions.

13. Both the US Army and the US Air Force have selfless service as one
of their core values. The Navy does not. Its core values include only honor,
courage, and commitment. However, the Navy's conception of courage embodies
selfless service, as it requires "making decisions in the best interest
of the Navy and the nation, without regard to personal consequences." For
a more complete discussion of the Navy core values, see http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/traditions/html/corvalu.html.

14. See Immanuel Kant's "Formula of Humanity" for a discussion of the
immorality of people used solely as means, in Groundwork of the Metaphysic
of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964).

15. I borrow the term "well-ordered" from John Rawls, A Theory of
Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ., 1971). A well-ordered state
is one designed to advance the good of its members and effectively regulate
a public conception of justice, which includes and protects basic human
rights.

16. See William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy for a New
Century (Washington: The White House, 1998).

17. See Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic
Books, 1977), p. 146, for a discussion of this point.

18. Hence, my future unspecified uses of the term noncombatant refer
to the innocent rather than non-innocent ones.

19. Walzer, pp. 153-55. Walzer improves the doctrine with the addition
of his revised third tenet, which I have incorporated verbatim.

20. Ibid., p. 153. Walzer contends that only the third clause carries
the burden.

21. See "Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established
to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,"
internet, http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/nato061300.htm, p. 13, accessed
20 March 2001, for a discussion concerning relative values.

22. See "Final Report," pp. 18-21, for a discussion of the incident.
The estimate of 10-17 deaths comes from the "Final Report." For the Serbian
claim of 16, see "Official Report of NATO Destruction," internet, http://www.canadianserbs.com/destruction/list.htm,
accessed 20 March 2001.

23. "Final Report," pp. 18-19.

24. See "Official Report of NATO Destruction," for the Serbian position.

25. "Final Report," p. 20.

26. Ibid., p. 21.

27. See Samuel Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and its Critics
(Oxford, Eng.: Oxford Univ., 1988), for a comprehensive discussion of consequentialism.

28. "Final Report," p. 21.

29. See Plato, TheRepublic (London: Penguin, 1955), p.
359, for a discussion of the myth of Gyges' ring and Socrates' advancement
of the argument I present here.

31. The Navy does not hold integrity as a core value. Rather, honor
demands "an uncompromising code of integrity." See note 13.

Major Michael A. Carlino is currently assigned as a Battalion Operations
Officer in the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division,
Baumholder, Germany. He has served in various leadership and staff positions
in the 101st Airborne Division, the 75th Ranger Regiment, and the 1st Cavalry
Division, as well as duty as an instructor in the Department of English
at the US Military Academy. He holds a B.S. in computer science from the
Military Academy and an M.A. in philosophy from Tufts University.